


falling asleep at the wheel

by mariiposie



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27981180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariiposie/pseuds/mariiposie
Summary: how am i supposed to be your ray of light?i get dark sometimes, does it pass you by?i should be your ray of light.but i'm falling asleep at the wheel.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen & Gina Porter, Ricky Bowen/Gina Porter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	falling asleep at the wheel

It’s hot. 

Like, _really_ hot. She can practically see the stinging hum of heat rising over the concrete in front of her, forming mirrors on the ground like a mirage, and illusion of water across the grey. Her forehead carries beads of sweat, the lids of her eyes heavy under the motionless heat.

It’s summer in Salt Lake City.

**His hand is in hers.**

Ricky sits beside her, aimlessly flicking his lighter between his fingers, almost like he doesn’t even realise that he’s doing it. He’s leaning all the way back against the baking concrete, the curls of his hair threatening to cling to his sticky forehead. His skateboard sits stationary at his feet. 

It’s far too hot to skate.

Crickets and cicadas sing and chirp in long grasses and in the branches of sporadic trees, and other than the gentle thrum of electrical wires above them, and the shallow, steady sound of Ricky’s breathing beside her, it remains silent.

She’s watching him. She doesn’t realise she’s doing it -- not at first. She lets herself study the contours of his face, every freckle, every mark. Things she’d deliberated over before, things she’d memorised like the back of her own hand. A hand that currently sat in Ricky’s. His face is red from the heat, gentle lines of veins tracing from his neck to just below his jaw. She notes how his skin is tanner than usual; almost sunkissed. She watches as he rubs a hand over his eyes, and stretches his free arm out behind him.

He must have noticed the way her eyes were studying, because he suddenly sits up -- looks right at her. The corner of his eyes soften, his whole demeanour relaxes. Any tension that had previously sat upon his shoulders suddenly dissipates. She watches it happen.

A puff of smoke escapes his lips, dancing high into a stagnant sky.

Nothing was moving. Not them, not the air above them. Not even the cars that usually traced the road maps of the city night in, night out.

Ricky looks at her like nobody has before. She can see it in his eyes every time he does. She feels it within her. It’s something wholly new to her. She knows she’s never felt like this before.

He shifts, so he’s sitting on his side. He takes her chin in his hand, pressing a dozen tiny kisses to her jaw and then to her cheeks and then finally -- one right on her lips.

She smiles into it.

**Her hand was in his.**

Something lingers, just there, right at her surface. Something she usually buried deep within herself. Like, even though this night, and Ricky, threatened to melt her right through to the core, she wanted nothing more than to bury herself in blankets and cardigans and old jackets that smelt of Ricky and just _get out_.

Her eyes feel heavy again. They threaten to lull her into unconsciousness, threaten to send her spiraling to somewhere she knew she’d so easily get lost.

Ricky’s looking at her. Like _really_ looking at her. As if he was making an attempt to memorise her. His eyes are still soft, and there’s a gentle smile on his lips as he does, like he’s admiring her instead of studying her. It was the same way she’d seen him gaze upon pieces of artwork before. He looked at her like she was a masterpiece, delicate and deliberate. Like he’s enjoying watching her ebbs and flows. Like he was waiting for her to show him what was going on behind those eyes.

She doesn’t know what she’d done to deserve this kind of love. Doesn’t know what she’d done to make him such a _mess_. A mess of quiet words, compliments whispered in her ear, even when he wasn’t sure if she was even listening to him. 

How she wishes she could bottle the way he looked at her in every moment, bottle the way he felt for her, and refine it and get drunk on it every night, and dance away the hours of darkness beneath the stars without a care in the world.

How she wishes that she could allow herself to be loved the way he wanted to love her.

She wishes she could rest her head against Ricky’s shoulder and just let the tears fall. But this felt like something more. Something heavier.

Something she tried to ignore.

Some deep-pitted feeling that she didn’t belong. Not here, not at East High, not in Salt Lake City. Not beside Ricky. She felt like she didn’t _deserve_ it.

She doesn’t want to put that on him. He can barely deal with his own goings on. So she doesn’t.

**His hand is still in hers.**

She shifts away from him, moving her body away. Moving her mind away. Just for a moment, she tells herself.

She lets herself fall flat against the concrete.

But Ricky’s still there when she closes her eyes. Like he’s dug in behind enemy lines. He’s entrenched there. She can’t blink him away.

**His hand isn’t in hers.**

Against the barren landscape her mind was showing her, she sticks out like a sore thumb. Ricky does too. But he’s managed to properly situate himself. Not so much that he blends in to everyone else, but enough that he can hear the warning cries if they ever come. 

Gina hasn’t. She’s still standing out. She’s still on edge. Easy pickings. 

It’s been this way for a while now.

She’s known it for a while. Always there. Constantly sitting like a weight on her chest. Such a deep rooted feeling of unbelonging.

She’s allowed it to completely overwhelm her subconscious too.

In the dreamy haze, she spreads out her arms, tries to make herself look bigger. If she became off putting enough, nothing would bother challenging her. She’d be the aggressor. She wouldn’t let herself be backed into a corner.

But then Ricky approaches across the scarred terrain.

And suddenly she’s vulnerable.

**His hand finds it’s way to hers.**

“Gi? Wake up.”

She stirs, regaining control of herself, and there’s that tension in her neck again -- sitting there as though there was something coming for her in her peripheral. Something she’d been waiting for for a while.

“There’s shooting stars Gi.”

She’s been at East High, been in Salt Lake City nearing upon a year now.

_It’ll be a fresh start._ Her Mum had started with. _A new page._

Gina had been through enough new pages to start an entire library. One filled top to bottom with unfinished stories. East High was the furthest she’d ever read. Ricky was her favourite character.

She’d become accustomed to all the ins and outs of the school, every detail of the routine all engraved within her mind.

The three rules she’d given herself before every move remained in her consciousness, because she knew, _knows_ , that at any given moment, everything could be swept out from under her and she’d be sent half way across the country to a new school, with a new life. Have to make new friends. Know people that _weren’t_ Ricky.

She used to remind herself of them every day. That first semester at East High, it was more like every five minutes. Sitting in Ricky’s car at Homecoming, she recounted them, over and over again.

Rule One -- Don’t make friends.  
Rule Two -- Don’t fall in love.  
Rule Three -- Don’t get your heart broken.

Ricky had taken a sledgehammer right to the first two. And, just as it always went, she was waiting on baited breaths for the third rule to come crashing down around her.

Because, as much as she had initially willed him not to be, Ricky was engraved in her mind too. Every moment, every lingering kiss, every stolen glance, all etched into her core. He was familiar. He was what she knew in Salt Lake. He was the first person she’d truly let in. The first person she could be herself with. Not the transfer student. Not the mean girl. Just Gina Porter. 

The memories she had with him had become a part of her. A part of who she was.

But now -- even after a year, even after having Ashlyn’s spare room offered to her until graduation -- she still had that lingering reminder that all of this could easily be just temporary.

That with one changed mind, one text, her mother could send her back halfway across the country all over again.

She’d made friends. Made connections. And though that feeling of unbelonging, of being an outsider, still sat within her, it had quitened.

She knew that her Mother would never. She only ever wanted what was best for her. But it didn’t stop those feelings from dissappearing entirely.

It didn’t stop her from thinking that everything that Ricky was giving her was only a temporary fix. 

It’s silly really. That she was even feeling like this in the first place.

She knows Ricky loves her. He announces it like a sermon. He tells her every morning, every night, every time he sees her, every time his hand slips into hers as they walk the corridors between lessons.

She’s sure he’s saying it now, too. Recounting three words like they were a poem written by one of the old age romantics.

She remembers a project the two of them had done about the romantics in English. She remembers learning that, when Percy Bysse Shelley died in Venice, he had his heart sent back to his widow in England, enwrapped in the last poem he’d written.

“All love is sweet, given or returned. Common as light is love, and it’s familiar voice wearies not ever. They who inspire it most are fortunate. As I am now: but those who feel it most are happier still.” He’d texted her the quote when they were researching the poet for their project. He’d said it reminded him of her.

Gina had given her heart to Ricky long ago, and to Ricky it still belonged.

But she can’t shift this silly feeling. That this, _they_ , are nothing but a fleeting moment in time. That his heart still belonged to another.

Ricky didn’t exactly fit in either. When they first met, they were both new to the East High Theatre Department, and through that their bond began. Even if he initially joined for a whole other reason -- Gina ended up being the reason he stayed.

And in a way, he was her reason for staying too.

That thing with Nini would always be there. She was his first love. They’d grown up together.

Gina knows how she feels about Ricky, though. She knows her feelings to be true. Even if her heart had taken some convincing in how it truly felt. But in the end? She’s never been so certain of anything before. His free hand lands upon her cheek, and she’s reminded of just why she came back in the first place.

She can still hear him talking. She can’t make out the words.

There’s a rhythm to them, though. Constant and steady. Almost grounding. Like a heartbeat.

**Her hand is in his.** She’s relaxed. She knows that this is where she feels the most at home. It’s familiar. It’s safe.

She cherishes it.

Smoke from Ricky’s parted lips drifts up into the sky. Streaks of amber and bronze and flaxen begin to paint the sky in front of them.

**Her hand is in his.** The darkness that loomed recedes. She looks at Ricky. Watches his eyes follow the streaks of light in the sky. Sat with him, that lingering feeling of unbelonging dissipates almost entirely. It’s still there. She doesn’t think it will ever truly leave her entirely.

**But her hand is in Ricky’s.**

He presses another dozen kisses to her cheeks, and her jaw, and one to the very tip of her nose.

**And his hand is in hers.**

She tells herself that she’ll tell him everything in the morning. About how she feels. She’d fallen this deep already, she might as well let that final wall down. Let him see her entirely, see her as sensitive as he’d ever seen her, everything bared and exposed.

She’ll tell him.

She’ll let him all the way in.

**Their hands are intertwined.**

She settles.


End file.
